SHORT STORIES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3034, 8 May 1912, Page 81

SHORT STORIES.

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UNCLE WILL'S WAGER. By Mary C. Rowsell, author of "Love Loyal," "St. Nicholas' Eve," "Under the Terror," "My Lady Caryl," etc., etc • "Well," smiled my Uncle Will, knocking the ashes from his meerschaum, and laying it carefully on the mantelpiece, "if ever there was an unconscionable demand, it seems tome vou've hit on it, lads. Adventure, indeech To try chevying them out of an old fellow who never leaves his burrow away there in Pump Court, but for a week's run down to (Brighton in vacation time, and a day or two at Christmas, just for a look at the dear old heme where in the remote ages he used to be a boy! Adventures ! Gravy out of stones, that would be a joke to it. Templar! oh, yes. I'm a Templar certainly. Getting quite a venerable one, too; and not without some experience about deeds undoubtedly, but not of the sort to interest you. No; the fellows you want lie in their casques and coats of mail, clasping then.' swords, as long as themselves, to their cold breasts, in the 'round* of the grand old church within a stcne's throw of my chambers; and perhaps if you could weedle the sacristan out of his keys, and look in on them any night when Big Ben is striking 12 over the great city, they would tell you adventures enough and no mistake. But fusty, crusty old fogies, smothered in silk, and horsehair wigs, and whose only weapon is a quill, what do they know of such things ? Why, if I were to rack my brains till this time to-morrow, I don't suppose I should come upon the ghost of —stay I" and Uncle Will pulled up with a jerk—"grrost ? Well, that puts me in mind of a—something that happened to me years ago, when I was a lad, somewhere about as old as, or a little older than, the oldest of you here. I'll tell you about that, if you like; and if my story doesn't suit you, why you can say, 'Hold, enough!' when you please; but if you are interested to know my one adventure, and how, now I think of it, it put an extinguisher on any others I might nave experienced, if I had worn a red ooat, as once 1 hoped to do, instead cf that black silk gown I was talking about juat now, why here goes. "When I left Harrow, and was going up for Cambridge, like your father had done before me, your grandfather took It into his head that as I was a stick at mathematics, and had about as much, chance of figuring in the first class tripos as Master Bkye here has of getting the birds he barks after, but still had some sort of talent for things in general, it would be a good plan, to send me to the Continent to complete my education. The prospect pleased me hugely; and, unlike most pleasures, the realisation came up to the anticipation; and though to be sure I had to rough it a little, that was no harm; and I soon settled down among my polyglot companions—for there were Germane, and French, and Russians, and one or two English among us—and became one of them. "It had been at firet arranged that I should go to Bonn University: but some friends of your grandfather's recommended very highly an establishment of a more private kind, which lay about a league in among the mountains on the othar side of the Rhine; and thither ultimately I went. "The school—or collegiate establishment —was a monastic foundation; but for the last hundred years or so the community having dwindled to one or two, these went elsewhere, and St. Cunigund's, as the place was called, was turned entirely into a place of education, and was superintended by a body of priests, chiefly prebendaries of Cologe Cathedral; and wonderfully clever fellows some of them •were, and jolly, too. Tou should have seen how they* would tuck up their soutanes; you know what they are, don't you? the long, close-buttoned coat reaching to the heels, which is the ordinary dress of the Continental clergy. Cassocks is the English name for them; only those worn at St. Cunigund's by teachers and pupils alike, instead of being tightsleeved like a coat, had a loose flowing sleeve: a ielic, I expect, of the old Benedictine habit worn by their monk predecessors. You should have seen, I say, how they would pin back these tiresome things, that were always getting in the way, tuck their skirts into their girdles, and join in a game of bowls, or have a go in at the great target with as much enjoyment as any of us lads; though in study time the soberest English don was nothing beside what they looked. " Yes, take them for all in all they were a good lot; though there was one man among them named Father Sebastian, head classical master he was, and one of the first Greek scholars, so it was said, in )all Germany, whom I never could make out. Any way, he fascinated me; and I used to spend hours in following his tall gaunt figure with my eyes, as he -walked in recreation time slowly up and down the cloisters, sometimes murmuring his breviary prayers, but oftener with his hands, which would have been beautiful had they not been so fearfully transparent that they looked nothing but skin and bone, clasped behind his back, and muttering to himself. - ... "His face matched the rest of him; it was handsome : featuTed, but cruelly drawn and thin, with not a scrap of colour in his hollow cheeks, except when after a long spell of work two spots used to come red as fire into them; but the lustre of his fine dark eyes gave all the life, shining like meteors in their sunken sockets. . " He could be rery stern and severe; and was down on you like an eagle for

a falix quantity. And yet if a fellow ■was ill, or in trouble about any bad news from Rune, or that sort of thing, he would speak as gently and kindly to you as your own mother could. When your Aunt Dorothy—whom you never knew, my . little sister —died, and Father Sebastian found me sobbing my heart out in a corner of the cloisters—for Dolly had always been my pet and plaything, and words cannot tell how dearly I loved her, —then I remember him. coming upon me unawares; and when I buried my face in my arms, and tried to hide my tears, how gently he laid his hand on my shoulder, so that it just made me break down altogether; and then, when he luid got my trouble out of me, he -bade mei not (to grieve, but to think of little Dolly as a happy creature 'whom the dear Christ had taken to Himself, before the world's sorrows and sin ' Then he stopped short, and as I looked to see why, I would have given a good deal not to have done so; for to my dying duty I can never forget the awful expression of pain and grief in his face, as if some memory too cruel to bear had struck him. " I don't know how old Father Sebastian was—somewhere between 40 and 50 I should think. He had a story, it is said, of which there were a dozen different versions going, and of which, I daresay, only himself had the right one. All alike, however, said that he had not always been a priest, but • a brilliant and greatly-sought-after man of the world, who had killed somebody in a duel for a great wrong that had been done him, or some person who was very dear to him; and that remoTse and misery had driven him to separate himself from his old life.

'' I liked some of my companions well enough. We used to have fine spurts though, sometimes, about whose was the finest country, you know; and would fling Napoleon Bonaparte, and Czar Peter, ana Wellington and Blucher at one another** heads till we broke them—or, at least got as far as preciously black eyes, ana the arbitrating powers of oux preceptors had to be called in, who usually arranged differences by a summary relegation of us off to bread and water for 24 hours, with solitary confinement in the old monk cells. "St Ounigund's was a lonely spot, standing some 200 yards in from the edge of a large lake hemmed about on every side by precipitous pineclad hills, amid the dark thickets of which the road wound on into the more open country round Cologne. A fine old building at Ounigund's, with tits grey, ivy-clothed walls, and wide-arched cloisters; and as strong for the most part as in the days when it was built centuries ago. v " Only the eastern wing had fallen into decay; but this had been restored, and a spacious new chapel occupied the greater part of it. What had been once the monks' chapel lay far down by the water's edge among the grass-rown crosses and monuments of past generations of the brethren, and was only used now for a mortuary chapel, where the bodies of any who died at St. Cumgund'a were carried, to await being laid to their final rest in the surrounding ' God's Acre.' " This place had a weird interest for us; and one day we came upon an astounding discovery, which we kept carefully concealed from the heads of the establishment, who may ? !for aught I know, be to this day in ignorance of it. So less it was than the existence of a subterranean passage, leading from some cellars underneath the refectory to a low flight of stone steps opening right un into the chapel, but which, during the recent alterations probably, had been walled up with a light partition of lath and plaster. This, we found, could be easily removed, and replaced at our convenience; and, charmed at the notion of holding such a dark and mysterious secret, the select few among us who had unereathed it swore hand upon hand never to reveal it; and in bands of six or seven, rarely fewer, we used to explore the dismal subway, only lighted at intervals by tiny gratings imperceptible from without, and emerge with hearts whose beatings were, I am inclined to fancy, always slightly quickenedj into the solemn edifice to gaze our fill at its sombre hangings, and the life-sized figure of the dead Christ which gleamed out. pallid, and with an awful stillness, through the shadows.

"Of course, there was nolMng to be really afraid of, and we were not I babies for the youngest among us was past his and the pljj. was simply a decent sheßer fo**o£ whose course on earth -was run, solemnity of it always made a.great n* pression on me, and often I used to see It in mv dreams. «™o? y of the 50 odd makang up our numbers, I distinguished two, by.conferring on them respectively my sincerest affection and my utmost-well. I wall cad it dislike. Both were Germans from the same district, too, somewhere in the Bavarian Alps, and a few ntonths older than me; Rudolf Knaus was one of your hectoring, bullying, teUoxnns hot*tivl sort of animals, not even yet quite extinct in his country, and—yes, I covld teJI you a good deal more about Knaus if it were worth while; but I had rather try and picture to you my good friend Maximilian Becker-Max as we used to call him-and who is still my friend, though the sea divides us, and we don t see each other's faces once in five how can I give you any adequate: notion of the gentle, rather dreamy-looking, brilliantly-gifted fellow, who was the pride and idol of us all, masters and comrades alike, sfill more, i think, for his modest, unassuming ways, than even for his splendid intellect; and his manhood has borne out all the promise of those days, for he stands now in the foremost rank of Germany's scholars. "I cannot tell what Max Becker first saw in me to single me out for his friend, but he did do so, and very proud 1 was of the honour. "It was impossible that between such antagonistic natures as his and that of Knaus there should be much love lost; but Max always endured Knaua with such a silent, "contemptuous way as a lion might have when putting up with the buzzing of a hornet about him. I envied his power of doing this, and told him so once. , , "'lt is the only way to do with him, quietly smiled Max. "'Such fellows are dangerous to bestow much notice on. "' You don't mean you're afraid of him, Max !' I demanded', with a spice of disappointment in my hero. " ' Doch!' and this time he laughed out merrily. ' I think not. But one lets sleepin? reptiles lie. And if you take my advice, you'll do as I do.' "One day several of us, Knaus and myself being of the party, made one of our secret expeditions to the chapel. As we stood on the top of the steps which opened into the very centre of the nave, and looked round in silence. Knaus burst into a loud mocking laugh that Jarred every nerve of me. I started with indignation at hie misplaced mirth, and I daresay I grew pale enough. " ' What's there to laugh at!' I demanded, turning on him. '"Ha! ha! ha!' he kept on. 'Laugh? Why it's enough to make a cat do it to see your face white as chalk, and your eyes starting out of your head as if you saw a ghost. Perhaps vou do. Ha! ha! ha!' "'Psha!' I said, turning sulkily away, 'Englishmen are never afraid.' ' Ho! ho ! ho ! Aren t thev/ shouted he. 'Ho! ho!' "'No,' I said, 'not of ghosts, anyhow. It's only Germans who make up humbug of that sort.' " He stopped laughing, and bit his lip at what I suppose he held to be an affront. Certainly I meant it to be so. "'Who's afraid?' I went on defiantly, giving him back his glowering stare. "'You are,' he said. " 'l'm not.' " ' I say you are. And I say you'd no more dare to come here, when there's something lying yonder,' and he ]>ointed his great coarse finger at the empty bier standing before the little altar. 'Something lying under ' " ' Wouldn't I!' I interrupted, with heaving breast. ' Try me.' "'Ah! ah!' sneered he. 'Not in broad daylight like this—ah, no! As the clock strikes midnight, mein junger; that would be the baa-gain.' " 'Done!' I said. " 'And,' he went on, as if some fresh brilliant notion had struck him, 'to make sure you really did do it ' " 'My word of honour on it,' I interrupted, loftily. " 'We'd like something more tangible,' he said with his evil smile. To make sure I say, you shall take with you a nail and hammer—see? and knock the naii into the wall just here. Here.' And crossing to the southern wall of the chancel at the bier's right hand, he rapped on it with his finger. 'Just about here; see?' " 'All right,' I nodded. " ! I Wonder,' he said, looking down at the bier, 'who ' " 'Don't, Knaus, shivered one of the party. 'That will do. Come away.' And we left the chapel. "When I told Max of my compact, he looked awfully vexed. 'What did I tell you about keeping clear of him?' he said. 'Well—well. Heaven grant you won't get your chance.' "I fancied he sighed. I thought I knew why, and changeless as life looked for us all at St. Cunigund's, death was busy in our midst; and there cam© a day when another took up the 2Eschylus 'Father Sebastian had lain down with his trembling white hands the day bo fare. He was getting a little rest, it was said. Well, I think we all understood that it was to be his last; and when a morning or two after the Superior, Father Raymond, as> he took his place on the dais, told us Father Sebastian was dead, a sob of deep grief broke from me fov the stern urahappv man who had won my heart by his kind word or two of sympathy. "A die in the Tibs recalled me to myself ; I looked up. It was my tormentor Knaus, a significant triumphant grin upon his face. Ho dared not speak then, but In the afternoon, as I was pacing the darkening cloisters, for it was late in November, and shiveringly gathered the big sleeves of my soutane closer about me, and fancying all the while I could

hear the old familiar dragging sound of : Father Sebastian's footsteps behind me. Knaus barred my way, and mockingly leminded me of mv compact. "A thrill ran through me, but I replied in a steady voice that I should be in the refectory cellar at the "appointed time. "I thought his face fell, and sometimes since 1 have wondered whether by any possibility this bold Teuton was overmuch enamoured of his own share in the proceedings. " 'You ought to get out of it, _ said Max/in his grave way, when I reminded I hint of what had to be. "You wouldn't have me such a disI honourable coward, Max?' I answered, reproachfully. , ' . ■ "He was silent, and a perplexed look ca.me into his face. "*Are you to go—quite alone? he asked then. •' i ' : Why, yes, of course,' I replied ; that s : the—the fun of it.' "He did not echo my rather weak laugh ; but lit his lamp and went on with his Sanskrit; and no more was said, till at 3upper time he looked at me where 1 sat beside him, and then leaning back with a j faint sigh," put his hand over his eyes. " 'Aren't you well, Max?' I asked, looking from him to his tumbler of untouched red wine. "Well enough, Mein Hera!' he answered, dropping his hand to mine, and clasping my fingers in has kindly way; 'onlv—Ach! Du barmherziger Himmel! What cold hands, Clifford! Look here, drink my wine, will you—lt'll warm you —I don't want it. Those crabbed letters have given me such a confounded headache. The wine would finish me quite, j But you—you've got rather a cold job before you, you know!' " I laughed rather drearily. "'What! going to bed, Max? I asked, as presently he rose. , j " 'Why not?' he said yawmngly, and disappeared. " 'Sleep well, then,' I called after him, a little hurt to think he troubled his head ; iso slightly about my adventure. " Not a sound save the wind gusts sweeping over the lake broke the stillness, when two hours after I slid from my bed, and, hurriedly slipping on my stockings, and buttoning my soutane over my shirt, crept through the corridors by the light of the fitful moonrays, till I reached the refectory. ' " Hurrying noiselessly on across the old stone floor on which the criss-cross panes of the tall lancet windows lay patterned by the moonlight like a carpet, and the gaunt shadows of the poplar trees, tossed by the wind, glided to and fro, I soon arrived at the head of the cellar steps, and descended, to find Knaus surrounded by a little knot of his fellow conspirators, : fox that for all the world they looked, with their soutanes huddled on anyhow, j and their pale faces—awfully pale they j looked in the dull light cast by their dark lanterns,—and their eyes fixed in . an eager stare on me. "Were they shaking all over? Well, j it was cold, and no mistake. j "'You're late,' growled Knaus under his breath. 'What do you mean by j keeping us waiting?' j " ' No,' I whispered, ' the clock ' " Hark !' One, two, came the solemn chimes just overhead —three —' Here,' and Knaus held out the hammer and a couple of nails. ' Two, in case you drop one, j you know.' They all broke into a low sniggering laugh, which echoed through the vaulted space with an ugly demoniacal harshness. "~" ' Hush !' said Knaus. ' Take this,' and he held out his lantern towards me. " ' No; a thousand thanks,' I answered proudly. ' The moon shines bright ! enough,' and without another word I j stepped forward over the oozing, broken i flags, slimy with the trail of newts and toads, picking my way as well as I could by the sickly gleams penetrating the small air-gratings through the choking nettle and weed-tangle, and with difficulty drawing my breath in the dank air, smelling of the mildewed lichen-growth encrusting the vaulted roof, which was so low that I had to stoop under it as I went. " The twists and turns of the way soon hid me from my companions. Once I paused and listened intently, for it seemed to me I could catch the sound of retreating footsteps. " Was it possible they were going? Leaving me there all alone? " If they were, they should get it hot the next day. Cowardly wretches! And quickening my pace, I stood at last in j front of the low flight of stone steps, which I ascended and gazed round me. " A flood of clear, steel-bright light illumined the chapel from end to end. For one instant my eyes rested on the marble group of the Pieta standing out dazzling white against the sable wall hangings, and then I saw nothing but the black mass before the altar, with its • draperies trailing in heavy folds to the shimmering floor, from the sharp unmistakable outline cresting the bier. " Four hours hence there would be watchers there, and the tall flanking j taners would be lit; but as yet in lonely majesty the dead man lay. Hardly colder those stiffening limbs than mine, as gripping fast my hammer, and feeling in my breast pocket for the nail, I staggered towards the chancel step. "Brighter and brighter the moon's effulgence poured in, spaaing me no detail, j i Still, it is not any vain boast that it i was not fear I felt then. No, I think it ! was not fear—only a deep awe holding I me snellbound. rooted to the spot, as I • thought of that stern, still face upturned I so close beside me, and those long pale ; hands that used to clench and clasp so ! wildly—ay ! decently composed now—restI in? at last. Yes surely—resting at last. That : thought gives me fresh courage, and sends i the chilled blood slowly through my veins j aeain, so that I turn boldly to the wall, and with the nail in my left hand, and I the hammer—Horror! swifter than the | twinkling of an eye, the moonlight has faded out, and I stand in pitchy darki ness I

" One instant my arms drop powerless; then despairing, as if galvanised into momentary life, I lift my tools again— Done. The nail driven in fast—fast, with firm, unfaltering stroke. With headlong rush, I turned to fly. To be dragged back by an iron grip upon my shoulder —about my heart! “A yell of horrid laughter echoes again, and again along the walls as I stagger forward, wrenching myself free, and fall senseless! “ ‘Senseless. Quite, quite senseless was I, Max?’ I ask for the hundred and ninety-ninth time of my friend, as he sits by the domitory stove among his eternal Sanskrit books, and I lie in my bed, where crcumstances over which T-' have had no control have detained me for weeks -ast. ‘ Flat on the floor—absolutely?’ ‘“Flat as a pancake/ said Max. ‘Dead, I was afraid at first, as a dornail. He stops abruptly. ‘■‘Nail!’ I laugh. ‘Speak out; don’t be afraid, old man. By-the-bye, show it me will you?’ I say, pleadingly. “ ‘ I think,’ says Max, stifling a groan, as he lays down his book, and moving towards a press which he opens, drags from its recesses a soutane, in whose torn left sleeve hangs an enormous brassheaded nail; T think it wouldn’t be half a bad plan to hang it up.’ And while he speaks he arranges the thing On a peg in tho wall facing my bed, keeping the torn sleeve and its odd appendage well to the front. “ ‘And that frightful shout of laughter, Max, that I heard ?’ “ 'Four own, as you fell.’ “‘What an idiot I was!’ is the sum-ming-up of my cogitations, when I have contemplated the soutane for full half an hour, striving to picture the story that torn garment tells. \ “A simple one enough. Only that in my terror, and the confusion of mind wrought by ‘the sudden dying out of the moonlight, I had, while driving in the nail, in that utter darkness, nailed my own sleeve to the wall! and it had been the counterformce of my own desperate rush from the spot which had dragged me back, and crowned the terrors of my excited senses; and when Max came, as he did, and lifted me, it was from the foot of the bier, wher Father Sebastian lay peacefully sleeping his long, sleep. “It was hardly much wonder that I' never hired of trying to get it all out of Max; but he said there was little enough to tell. Ho had been troubled about the upshot Of the plot, which it had seemed to him a point of honour not to disclose. ‘For I do think, had the fellow bullied me as he-was always doing you, I should have wished to shut him up as you did. Only ’ “ ‘Only you wouldn’t have been such a stupid, sheep-headed dolt ’ “ ‘How can I tell?’ shrugged Max. ‘l’m glad I came too, that’s all.’ “Yes. There in the chapel, not being quite certain of the appointed moment, he had been concealed a nice full pleasant two hours, half smothered behind the black wall hangings, on the watch for me. “ ‘But what made you think of doing such a thing, Max dear?’ I asked. “ ‘Upon my honour, unless it was your cold hands at supper time, and perhaps a sort of a look in your eyes, or perhaps I fancied there might be some double play you didn’t suspect.’ “ ‘But there wasn’t.’ ■ “ ‘No,’ laughed Max. ‘They didn’t stop for that. They’d had enough before you were fairly into the chapel.’ “ ‘Then I did hear them ’ “ ‘Run away? Yes. I made Knaus confess all, on pain of showing the whole thing up to Father Raymond. He’s on his best behaviour, I can tell you, is Master Knaus for fear of you.’ “ ‘For fear I shall split on him. Eh?.’. “Max looked puzzled; fine linguist though he was. “‘Tell all about it, you know.’ “ ‘Ah, yes, yes. Y T ou see nothing’s known, because I carried you as far as the refectory before I roused the place up ; and it’s supposed you ihuat have been taken ill —nervous fever, don’t you see? that’s what’s been the matter with you—suddenly at supper time, and got overlooked. Tumbled under the table, for example.’ “ ‘But how do they account for your finding me?’ “ ‘Oh, that’s easy enough. They know my ways, and let me have them. I often leave my books behind me, among the plates and dishes, and come back for them any time of night.’ “ ‘And Knaus?’ “ ‘ls at your mercy,’ said Max, ‘as I tell you.’ “ ‘I think I’ll let him go,’ I said. ‘He’s been frightened enough, eh, Max? What would you do?’ “ ‘Yes; leave him alone, as I told you to do long ago,’ laughed he. “And so Knaus wriggled out of my life. Whether it would have been any satisfaction to him to have known how he had marred it, by bringing on me months, and even years, of I. cannot tell; for as long as that I paid for the stupid wager, though health gained the day at last; but not completely enough to make a good soldier of mo. “There’s my one adventure, boys, such as it is; and when you read or hear people talk about Max Becker, love him a little for my sake.”